Idea

Today we are going to create a Screen Recorder in Python using OpenCV.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of basic Python coding, basics of OpenCV, numpy and Pillow.

Install Modules

  pip install pillow
  pip install numpy
  pip install opencv-python

Type these commands one by one in your terminal: cmd, bash, etc.. and press enter (run).

  pip install pillow numpy opencv-python

Code

Import modules

from PIL import ImageGrab
import numpy as np
import cv2, datetime
from win32api import GetSystemMetrics
from screeninfo import get_monitors

Note: We import opencv module with the name cv2 in Python.

The logic

for m in get_monitors():
    width = str(m.width)
    height = str(m.height)

width = GetSystemMetrics(0)
height = GetSystemMetrics(1)

time_stamp = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H-%M-%S')
file_name = f'{time_stamp}.mp4'

enc = cv2.VideoWriter_fourcc('m', 'p', '4', 'v')
cap_vd = cv2.VideoWriter(file_name, enc, 20.0, (width, height))

def app():
    img = ImageGrab.grab(bbox=(0, 0, width, height))
    img_np = np.array(img)
    img_final = cv2.cvtColor(img_np, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGB)
    cv2.imshow('Screen Capture', img_final)
    cap_vd.write(img_final)

while True:
    app()
    if cv2.waitKey(10) == ord('q'):
        break

Output

Now your app is ready. Run the code and wait. Everything on the screen will be recorded. Press q on your keyboard to stop the recording. The recording is then saved to the directory where the file is.

Summary

In this article you learnt how you can make your own screen recorder using Python. You learnt about the use of python pillow module and numpy. We made the screen recorder using opencv.